Agency

For various reasons, not all agencies have prioritized diversity initiatives, and not all of them will. But by now, agency leaders have considered where they stand on diversity and inclusion (D&I), whether they are willing to commit to change (publicly or internally), and what resources they will make available to their cause.  By Mark Duval / The Duval Partnership

ith so much of modern life occurring in the digital realm, more and more personal information is being captured online and traded between brands as a way to better understand their consumers. But what started as a way to make users’ lives easier by serving up convenient, personally relevant information has morphed into what’s perceived as a shady, underhanded economy of consumer data wheeling and dealing.

Recently while reviewing an audio media plan with a major client we noted that while they were using a vast array of AM/FM radio programming content, they were not buying Spanish radio. The response was, “We get the audience with a general market buy.”  Was that really true? Can a general market buy with only English language stations do an effective job of reaching Hispanics and Spanish speakers? We turned to Oliver Marquis, VP Media Analytics at Nielsen, for assistance.  By Pierre Bouvard / Westwood One

In recent years, television measurement has been done through two distinct approaches. The first, adopted by more traditional television marketers, relies on gross rating points (GRPs) to evaluate and buy inventory to meet marketing goals. The second, brought on by the evolution of streaming behavior, evaluates based on the standard for digital audience measurement: impressions.

An obsession with efficiency has resulted in advertising that is bland and uninspiring – much like a supermarket tomato.  By Nigel Hollis / Chief Global Analyst, Kantar

I’ve just completed a fascinating collaboration with the econometric guru Paul Dyson which reviews a ranking of the key factors that impact advertising profitability, together with an indication of the relative importance of those factors (multipliers*). Unfortunately, it seems that not all advertisers are concentrating their energies and budgets in the right areas to make advertising as profitable as it can be.  By Duncan Southgate / Global Brand Director, Media, Insights Division

The human tragedy of COVID-19 has upended lives around the world and had a dramatic effect on consumer behavior. For businesses, these changes are forcing marketers to reimagine how they connect with their customers and drive growth.

As consumers use more and more connected personal devices to organize, curate and discover media, the opportunities to reach them through advertising has exploded.  By Steve Davis / Global Director, Advertising Intelligence, Media Division

Brand growth is the mantra of marketers. Today the number of new tools available to help marketers achieve brand growth is multiplying annually. The new focus is on large scale databases, data science, artificial intelligence, biometrics, and the beginnings of a true marketing science. However, all of this is competing for attention within the context of established marketing processes, advertiser-agency relationship structures, and higher order degrees of complexity of communication. The result is that  “good enough” often substitutes for adoption of proven innovations.

Earlier this year, the pandemic thrust many Americans into a new lifestyle. We worked, learned, parented and cooked at home, shifting how and where we ate, watched TV and listened to music. It even altered our sleeping habits. But a funny thing happened on the road to re-emergence: Consumers, used to choosing when, where and how much content they connect with, found that by working from home they actually had a newfound choice when it came to their jobs, thereby giving employees a chance to achieve a better work/life balance.

COVID-19 has turned an industry term into something far more literal. Will brands continue to promote the safety of their products when the pandemic ends?

The good thing about change is that it opens a dialogue about what needs to happen next. So I wonder, as data gets bigger, will it become more inclusive or has Hispanics and other minority populations, yet again, been left out of the conversation?  by Mario Carrasco

Esports describes the world of competitive, organized video gaming. But who is its audience? And why should brands and marketers pay attention? In this episode, we sit down with Ben Paro, Category Director of Sports and Gaming at MRI-Simmons, as he explains the rise of this unique and faithful segmentation. Tune in to understand the innovative entertainment that eSports is serving up- and the opportunities it gives brands and advertisers.

While the market research industry has mostly embraced the Black Lives Matter Movement, I urge fellow researchers to go beyond issuing a powerful statement.

Solis Health Plans announced a partnership with Major League Baseball’s Miami Marlins, winners of two World Series championships.

Today’s charged sociopolitical climate has underscored the importance of multicultural media for Black and Hispanic audiences, a new study from Horowitz Research finds. Three-quarters of Black (74%) and Hispanic (73%) consumers are at least occasional consumers of Black or Hispanic targeted media and 44% and 42% are frequent consumers, according to Horowitz’s State of Consumer Engagement 2020 study. The study, which was fielded in May 2020, also found that six in 10 Asians are at least occasional consumers of media targeted to them.

Advertising agencies are exceptionally complex businesses, driven by digital / social media innovations, large and fragmented scopes of work, procurement-led fee reductions, holding company-led downsizings, and client pressures to get brands moving again. Agencies have developed hyper-targeted digital executions and ROI tracking tools to help their clients. What they have not done is develop new and better metrics for managing their own businesses.

Pan-ethnic labels describing the U.S. population of people tracing their roots to Latin America and Spain have been introduced over the decades, rising and falling in popularity. Today, the two dominant labels in use are Hispanic and Latino, with origins in the 1970s and 1990s respectively.  More recently, a new, gender-neutral, pan-ethnic label, Latinx, has emerged as an alternative that is used by some news and entertainment outlets, corporations, local governments and universities to describe the nation’s Hispanic population.

However, as I have often found when writing posts over the last 14 years, the subject matter got away from me and I ended up with a summation of what all brands should do to drive profitable brand growth.  by Nigel Hollis

Univision Communications Inc. unveiled sponsors for the 17th annual “Premios Juventud” (Youth Awards), the summer’s premier Latin music celebration.